Ancient news stories

Ancient sheep poop reveals an unknown population on Faroe Islands before Vikings
17th December 2021 edition.cnn.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

The isolated Faroe Islands were once home to an unknown population in 500 AD, about 350 years before Vikings ever arrived, according to new research. And the evidence comes from an unusual source: ancient sheep poop.

The African origins of life in the Amazon
17th December 2021 | nationalgeographic.co.uk | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

Thousands of miles away from its origin, magic happens: around 27 million tons of dust from the deserts of Africa drops out of the sky, bringing life into the ‘lungs of the planet’.

Image from: Catedral Verde – Floresta Amazonica (Wiki Commons)

 

Neanderthals changed ecosystems 125,000 years ago
17th December 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Hunter-gathers caused ecosystems to change 125,000 years ago. These are the findings of an interdisciplinary study by archeologists from Leiden University in collaboration with other researchers. Neanderthals used fire to keep the landscape open and thus had a big impact on their local environment.

Earliest adorned female infant burial in Europe significant in understanding evolution of personhood
14th December 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

Ten thousand years ago, just after the last Ice Age, a group of hunter-gatherers buried an infant girl in an Italian cave. They entombed her with a rich selection of their treasured beads and pendants, and an eagle-owl talon, signaling their grief, and showing that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in their society.

Ice Age Mammoth and Horse DNA Found in Soil Samples Left in Freezer
9th December 2021 gizmodo.com | Ancient, Humans

Soils kept in cold storage suggest that some of these now-extinct animals survived longer than previously thought…The ice-cold cores from Klondike were later found in a McMaster University freezer by Tyler Murchie, an archaeologist specializing in ancient DNA at the university, who began to reinvestigate them. Murchie and his team’s work was published today in Nature Communications.

Denisovans or Homo sapiens: Who were the first to settle permanently on the Tibetan Plateau?
9th December 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

The Tibetan Plateau has long been considered one of the last places to be populated by people in their migration around the globe. A new paper by archeologists at the University of California, Davis, highlights that our extinct cousins, the Denisovans, reached the “roof of the world” about 160,000 years ago—120,000 years earlier than previous estimates for our species—and even contributed to our adaptation to high altitude.

Best physical evidence of Roman crucifixion found in Cambridgeshire
9th December 2021 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Humans

Near 1,900-year-old skeleton discovered with nail through heel bone during excavation in Fenstanton

Orkney’s rare Viking sword has ‘many stories to tell’
9th December 2021 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Humans

A Viking sword found at a burial site in Orkney is a rare, exciting and complex artefact, say archaeologists.

2,700-year-old leather armor proves technology transfer happened in antiquity
9th December 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

Researchers at the University of Zurich have investigated a unique leather scale armor found in the tomb of a horse rider in Northwest China.

Hot news from two billion years ago: plankton actually moved mountains
6th December 2021 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Earth

The mighty forces that created our planet’s mountains in ancient days got some unexpected help, scientists have discovered. Their research shows some of Earth’s greatest ranges got a boost from primitive lifeforms whose remains lubricated movements of rock slabs and allowed them to pile up to form mountains.

An Unknown Human Ancestor May Have Left 3.7-Million-Year-Old Footprints in Africa
2nd December 2021 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Humans

A staggering 3.7 million years ago, an unknown species walked on two legs across a blanket of volcanic ash in what’s now northern Tanzania. These steps, immortalized by the volcanic ash gradually turning into rock, were unearthed back in 1978 and mistakenly dismissed as being bear-like. But not everyone agreed.

Archaeologists unearth mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old in Peru
29th November 2021 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Humans

Remains found inside an underground structure were tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face.

Earliest evidence of humans decorating jewelery in Eurasia
29th November 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

A new multidisciplinary study by an international team reports the discovery of an ivory pendant decorated with a pattern of at least 50 punctures, creating an irregular looping curve. The direct radiocarbon date of the ornament yields an age of 41,500 years.

‘Gangotri wave’ connecting two of Milky Way’s spiral arms discovered
29th November 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Space

A team of researchers from Germany, France and the U.K. has discovered a long thin filament of dense gas connecting two of the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arms. In their paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the group describes their work studying carbon monoxide gas in the galaxy.

4-legged ‘snake’ fossil is actually a different ancient animal, new study claims
29th November 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A dinosaur-age fossil heralded as the first four-legged snake known to science might actually be an entirely different beastie, a new study claims.

Ancient hominin walked like a human but climbed like an ape
25th November 2021 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Humans

In 2015, mining excavations in Malapa, South Africa, revealed fossil vertebrae trapped in cement-like rock called breccia. Analysis revealed the vertebrae to be two million years old, from the lower back of a female Australopithecus sediba, a relative of modern humans first discovered at the same site in 2008.

News stories covering history, archaeology, ancient Egypt, and mysteries of the past.